Walking the Path of Love
In 2011, Matt Hopwood set forth on a journey through the United Kingdom and beyond to practice heart-led activism and compassion. Seeing love as the source of human connection and genuine social action, Hopwood listened to and shared as many love stories as he could. The experience ended up being incredibly meaningful to him not just because of the moving stories that came out of it but because of... posted on Mar 30, 0 reads

The Love You Seek
Imagine if you loved yourself fully, with the same compassion and tenderness you reserved for others. What would this look like? What would it mean? Self-love is a gift we can bestow upon ourselves each day. "As much as we say I love you to another, we can say it to ourselves. We can say these three words frequently, and we can say them with the reverence for which they are meant." In this moving ... posted on Apr 5, 39894 reads

9/11 Brought Them Together. They've Been Spreading Love Since
On a day when division and hate became tangible on a large scale in America, three minsters from different religions were moved by their faith to make peace. 9/11 marked a violent awakening of hate for some, but for Rabbi Ted Falcon of Bet Alef Meditative Synagogue, Reverend Don Mackenzie, a minister and head of staff at the University Congregational United Church of Christ, and Jamal Rahman, a M... posted on Oct 13, 6054 reads

Who is Mother?
Matt Hopwood is a writer, storyteller and founder of A Human Love Story. He has traveled widely to gather peoples experiences of love and connection. In 2018 after the death of his beloved grandmother - he wanted to explore the role of mother in our lives and communities. Matt eventually grew the awareness of the sense of Mother in himself. He shares with us his yearning to nurture, the longing to... posted on May 14, 5860 reads

The Religious Value of the Unknown
In an age when the fate of the world is unknown, George Prochnik makes a case for uncertainty as a form of faith and hope. Restoring a sense of the unknown requires unlearning, calling into question our way of life. In uncertainty, reason fails whereas love guides. This love can be exemplified by those who spend hours practicing arts and handicrafts with no concern for real-world application, but ... posted on Oct 15, 3302 reads

Be Love Now
"Imagine feeling more love from someone than you have ever known. You're being loved even more than your mother loved you when you were an infant, more than you were ever loved by your father, your child, or your most intimate lover--anyone...This love is actually part of you; it is always flowing through you. It's like the subatomic texture of the universe, the dark matter that connects everythin... posted on Dec 24, 24002 reads

Click Here for Unconditional Love
On Sue Cochrane's website is a button that says "Click Here for Unconditional Love"- it leads to a selection of writings that offer exactly that. It isn't just the words of Sue's stories that touch the reader, but the wordless energy behind them. Sue Cochrane survived a traumatic childhood to become a pioneering family court judge. Throughout her career she strived to put the heart back into the b... posted on Feb 15, 0 reads

An Illustrated Poster for People Who Love Their Work
'Arbejdsglaede' is a wonderful Scandinavian word that literally means 'work-love' or 'work-glad'. There is no direct translation for this word in the English language, so Maptia decided to use crowdsourcing to explore its meaning. More than 200 people who love their jobs shared three words that described how they felt on a Monday morning. A beautiful poster summarizes the results, with the size of... posted on Apr 28, 40942 reads

The Third Harmony
In this short film made by the Metta Center for Nonviolence, veteran activists make clear the need for nonviolence on a worldwide scale at this critical stage in human evolution--not just to solve problems in an isolated crisis but as a way of life that can change the world for all of us. According to Dr. Bernard LaFayette, founder of the Center for Nonviolence & Peace studies, the challenge for e... posted on Jun 17, 2239 reads

bell hooks: A Revolutionary Who Led With Love
"I have known radicals and revolutionaries who love 'the people' but whose everyday lives are replete with contradictions. The late bell hooks was by no means perfect, but she was impressively consistent. She took seriously the notion that a revolution had to center love and was as much about transforming ourselves as it was about transforming the world. I met hooks when I was a graduate student a... posted on Jan 25, 4310 reads

The Abundance of Less
"Nakamura and I were sitting there drinking tea on a winter's day at his fire pit in the middle of the floor, and the shoji screens were open. We were looking across the valley; the snow was clinging to the cedar boughs, and the wind would come up throwing these sheets of powdered snow into the air. Mist was hiding the branches of the trees, and then revealing them. It felt like a Chinese ink pai... posted on Aug 19, 1918 reads

Writing a Better Story
There comes a time when we choose what stories we tell ourselves personally or as a community. "So let us all honor the stories that gave us courage and personal grounding, the stories that brought us here, the finest ones the ancestors carried for us until we could carry them for ourselves. Let us acknowledge the stories that its time to finally release, to name the dragon so that the dragon can... posted on Apr 1, 2283 reads

Gold is the Deepest Love
"'Gold,' the title of my book, is a word that recurs throughout Rumi's poetry. Rumi's gold is not the precious metal but a feeling-state arrived at through the alchemical process of altering consciousness, of burning through ego, greed, pettiness, and calculation, to arrive at a more relaxed and compassionate state of being. In sum, the prayer of Sufism is 'teach me to love more deeply.' Gold is t... posted on Aug 12, 4315 reads

The Nettle Dress
Over the course of seven years Allan Brown makes a dress by hand from foraged nettles. In the process, as he experiences the loss of two loved ones, he weaves his love into the fabric that he is creating. He spends seven summers harvesting the nettle and seven winters spinning it into fabric to make a dress for his daughter. The thread he creates carries his grief and his love, so that the cloth r... posted on Aug 26, 3043 reads

Bicycling Around the World for Love
A young Indian artist met a Swedish tourist in New Delhi, and painted her portrait in the 1970's. They formed an immediate bond and got married in PK Mahanadia's ancestral village. When the love of his life, Charlotte von Schedvin, had to go back to Sweden after a few weeks, he worked on a plan to sell his few possessions, purchased a used bicycle, and traveled 8000 kilometers to reunite with her.... posted on Feb 10, 1748 reads

Granddaughter's Eyes: 21-Day Climate Action Challenge
"Granddaughter's Eyes" is a music video that invites us to pay close attention to the Earth, to love her deeply and take action to heal her wounds. The song reminds us that every act of attention is an act of reciprocity, generating wonder and joy, perpetuating the gift. When we fall in love with the living world, a profound intention emerges from our attention, a longing to protect and honor her.... posted on Apr 19, 4283 reads

Relational Neuroscience & Art: A Love Story
"I want to tell you a love story. It spans 20 years. A woman exploring tide pools was approached by a 24-legged sunflower sea star who came out of the sea grass, touching her shoe and exploring her pant leg. The woman fell in love with that beautiful creature, and it changed her life forever. The woman is me, an artist, psychotherapist, and student of Relational Neuroscience and Interpersonal Ne... posted on Sep 26, 3412 reads

Untitled
While the most popular 50 websites are commercial, most of the 3 billion web pages in the world are not. Why? Kevin Kelly's, in Wall Street Journal's article on "The Web Runs on Love, Not Greed" says it's because people love to share.... posted on Mar 14, 2169 reads

Energizing Elixir
Love is in the air almost everywhere -- in movies, on TV, in greeting cards and, of course, in steamy romance novels. Ministers preach about it, pop stars sing about it, but what exactly is love? Researchers at Fetzer Institute are trying to understand its subtler, altruistic nature and coming to interesting conclusions. For instance, having a clear-eyed assessment of your spouse, and not the am... posted on Jun 12, 1167 reads

Risk something for love
It was never going to be easy for the American sergeant and the Iraqi doctor who fell in love in Baghdad - he was kicked out of the army and the country and she was threatened in the street. But now the couple, who married last August and haven't seen each other since, are to be reunited.... posted on Feb 17, 1865 reads

Father & Son Heroes
The story of Dick and Rick Hoyt is an inspirational love story, based on the philosophy "you can!" Although Rick was born with cerebral palsy, his parents were determined to treat him just like their other boys, despite medical professionals who counseled them otherwise. Consequently, Rick grew up engaging and intelligent; and when he was 12 years old even found his voice with the help of the 'Hop... posted on Sep 20, 2467 reads

Locks of Love
After witnessing her own child's hardships with hair loss due to a medical condition called alopecia areata, Madonna Coffman started Locks of Love. The non-profit collects donated hair, manufacturers them into hairpieces, and distributes them to financially disadvantaged children. The protheses provide help restore self-esteem, enabling the children to face the world and their peers. ... posted on Sep 20, 1248 reads

World's Largest Love Letter
The World’s Largest Love Letter, soon to be delivered from children in India to children in Pakistan, started as few projects do: for visa renewal! Two Americans visiting India needed to make a quick trip outside of India to renew their visas; how wonderful, they thought, if they could arrive in Pakistan carrying armloads of friendship letters – from children, to children. So they began riding... posted on Mar 19, 2762 reads

Made With Love Café
It started as a relief project after Hurricane Katrina. But it's still going today -- a volunteer-run kitchen that serves 1500 hot meals a day in New Orleans! "Our meals are free and available to anyone who needs food. We are non-political, non-religious, and hope that by bringing volunteers together from all over we can create a joyful and safe place for residents to begin rebuilding their comm... posted on May 31, 3094 reads

The Barber Who Loved Books
Fueled by a lifelong love of literature -- which began as a child when he sneaked a pre-dawn peek at his neighbor's newspaper –- Rueben Martinez decided it would be his mission to raise the literacy rate among Hispanics. He got the idea to open a bookstore inside his barbershop in 1993, after customers repeatedly borrowed his collection of 200 books. The store took on a life of its own, expandin... posted on Jul 23, 1548 reads

A Daughter's First Words
A little girl who cannot walk or talk has used a machine to tell her mother for the first time: "I love you." Six-year-old Elke Wisbey, who was born brain-damaged, has been able to communicate with her family by using a high-tech gadget which tracks her eye movements. Readers of a local newspaper raised money to buy the specially-adapted machine for the family. The MyTobii Smartbox machine from Sw... posted on Nov 2, 1829 reads

A Daughter's First Words
A little girl who cannot walk or talk has used a machine to tell her mother for the first time: "I love you." Six-year-old Elke Wisbey, who was born brain-damaged, has been able to communicate with her family by using a high-tech gadget which tracks her eye movements. Readers of a local newspaper raised money to buy the specially-adapted machine for the family. The MyTobii Smartbox machine from Sw... posted on Nov 6, 4249 reads

Wings of Love: Airline Ambassadors
She lost her father to cancer on Christmas Eve 1983. Traveling the world to find answers, she came to this realization of life's purpose: love in action. In 1997, this flight attendant started a nonprofit called Airline Ambassadors to deliver small amounts of humanitarian aid to orphanages worldwide. In 1999, she was honored as World Woman of Peace. Meet Nancy Rivard.... posted on Dec 25, 3312 reads

Benjamin Zander's Shining Eyes
There are 2 ways to approach this talk: 1. A man talks about classical music 2. A man discusses how to experience life and throws in some Chopin for good measure. Benjamin Zander has two infectious passions: classical music, and helping us all realize our untapped love for it -- and by extension, our untapped love for all new possibilities, new experiences, new connections. ... posted on Feb 15, 4701 reads

Hero Provides A Free Lunch
Chemotherapy treatments are no fun, but patients here at the Kaiser Permanente Oncology Department in Denver have reason to look forward to their visits. On the fourth Thursday of every month everyone here -- patients, family, and staff -- gets a free, homemade lunch. "They love it and I love it. I bring sandwiches and Texas sheet cake, and chips. We have the same menu every month, but everybody l... posted on Aug 3, 2152 reads

A Collection of Mothers' Best Advice
"Give and take in that order." "Don't be afraid to get your hands dirty. They'll wash clean." "Say "I love you, frequently but not casually." "No matter how a body ages, the spirit stays forever young." "Always have a love for learning." "Never say no to someone who asked for food." These are just some of the favorite sayings thousands of readers shared when asked about the best advice given to t... posted on Aug 1, 5688 reads

Art & The Happiness Entrepreneur
"Through a long series of coincidences, this 'art box' finds you. When I had to give a gift for my sister, I realized her two loves. Her first love was art, the joy of creative expression, the connection with a subtler force. In her high school graduation speech, she used a quote that summed up her perspective: an artist isn't a special kind of a person but every person is a special kind of an art... posted on Aug 18, 3898 reads

A Mother's Love
There are mothers who will spend today missing sons and daughters fighting overseas. There are women who have lost children in those wars, for whom Mother's Day will never be the same. And then there is Eva Briseno. Joesph Briseno Jr., Eva's 27-year-old son, is one of the most severely wounded soldiers ever to survive. A bullet to the back of his head in Baghdad marketplace in 2003 left him paraly... posted on May 9, 2485 reads

Inspiring a Community of Hope
When Nancy Sieglar was diagnosed with breast cancer, sunflowers saved her life. With no reason other than, "they make me feel good and give me inner strength," Sieglar began growing the regal flowers with love, an act that helped her get through some very scary times. Now, her garden - brimming with 26 species of sunflowers, some as tall as 16 feet - is burgeoning into a vibrant sanctuary of hope.... posted on Oct 2, 2901 reads

A Love Affair With Questions
In this beautiful black-and-white vignette, filmmaker Nic Askew interviews a man named Julio Olalla. Julio candidly speaks about an encounter with his father that changed his life, and what he learned: "Gratitude in so many ways is so dramatically missing in the world today. Without gratitude nothing is enough." Over this 10-minute video, he reflects on his own experiences, ranging from exploring ... posted on Jul 3, 5345 reads

Connected: Love, Death, & Technology
"From the beginning of time, every new technological advancement has brought with it a complex mix of positive and negative repercussions as well as unintended consequences. I set out to make a film that addresses the potential of our twenty-first-century technologies and the importance of harnessing their powers. I also wanted to examine what can happen when these new technologies take over and s... posted on Oct 3, 21424 reads

A Guide to Finding Your Passion
"Following your passion can be a tough thing. But figuring out what that passion is can be even more elusive. I'm lucky -- I've found my passion, and I'm living it. I can testify that it's the most wonderful thing, to be able to make a living doing what you love. And so, in this little guide, I'd like to help you get started figuring out what you'd love doing. This will be the thing that will get ... posted on Feb 5, 87040 reads

How to Be Alone
This charming and chirpy video pays tribute to the happy wholesomeness of being alone. Tanya Davis recites her poem about the ways of solitude, gently cataloging all the places where aloneness can bring freedom and healing. Whether at a lunch counter, park bench, mountain trail, or on the edge of a dance floor -- all we have to do is love ourselves enough, to love being alone.... posted on Mar 16, 10326 reads

A Sister's Deathless Legacy of Love
"After living through an experimental cancer treatment my sister Barb was left unable to work. When she was offered the opportunity to do a mission trip in India if she could come up with $3,000 - she was left thinking there was no way she could go. No way to raise the funds. She asked me to brainstorm with her as to how she could raise money. "The only thing I can do is hug," she told me - and th... posted on Jul 18, 16360 reads

One of the Greatest Love Stories Ever
This animated StoryCorps video tells one of the greatest love stories ever. Funny, touching, and insightful, Danny and Annie share the story of their ordinary yet wondrous journey together, right from their very first date up until their final farewell.... posted on Jul 21, 11269 reads

A Conspiracy of Love: Stanford Graduation Speech
In these video excerpts, charismatic Newark Mayor, Cory Booker, reminds Stanford graduates that their success is the product of a vast "conspiracy of love," and challenges all of us to engage in the conspiratorial caring that makes our society safe, strong, and ennobling. A clear and compelling message, and one of the most articulate and inspired commencement speeches of recent times.... posted on Aug 4, 5516 reads

One Hat, One Heart
Seeds of Light is the humanitarian service arm of CoreLight, an international non-profit organization practicing "love-in-action." One Hat One Heart is a project that provides handmade, warm winter hats to orphans and vulnerable children in Mpumalanga, South Africa. These hats are the medium through which joy and open-heartedness are being expressed. This short video on their work demonstrates wha... posted on Oct 27, 2702 reads

Solving Gen Y's Passion Problem
"This simple phrase, "follow your passion," turns out to be surprisingly pernicious...The verb "follow" implies that you start by identifying a passion and then match this preexisting calling to a job. Because the passion precedes the job, it stands to reason that you should love your work from the very first day. It's this final implication that causes damage. When I studied people who love what ... posted on Oct 18, 12183 reads

The Wisdom of Babies
"For years I worked with families who were very abusive to their children. Over time, I came to realize that all of the suffering that the children collected -- whether it was domestic violence or child abuse or neglect -- was a result of the absence of empathy in the parent. I saw that if you haven't experienced love, it's very difficult to know how to love. So what can we do to break this cycle ... posted on Jan 25, 0 reads

The World Needs More Love Letters
Finding a letter of encouragement in the mail or tucked unexpectedly in the unlikeliest of places is sometimes all we need when in doubt or feeling down on our luck. And imagine receiving this note anonymously, as if some magical force out there knew just what you needed to hear and wanted you to know that you haven't been forgotten. In the fall of 2010, in the midst of her own depression and lon... posted on Jan 11, 26553 reads

The Wisdom of Babies
"For years I worked with families who were very abusive to their children. Over time, I came to realize that all of the suffering that the children collected -- whether it was domestic violence or child abuse or neglect -- was a result of the absence of empathy in the parent. I saw that if you haven't experienced love, it's very difficult to know how to love. So what can we do to break this cycle ... posted on Jan 26, 40066 reads

Mr. Wright's Law of Love
No one falls asleep in Jeffrey Wright's high school physics class. Exploding pumpkins, hovercrafts and an experiment involving a bed of nails, a cinder block and a sledgehammer, are some of the crazy stunts that keep the students enthralled. But it is a simple lecture - one without props or fireballs - that makes the greatest impression on his students each year. The talk is about Mr. Wright's exp... posted on Mar 9, 7558 reads

Love Your Life: An Interview with Maurice Sendak
As our spirit grows, we become more in touch with the beauty of the world. Artist Christoph Niemann illustrates his personal take on an interview with Maurice Sendak on NPR's Fresh Air. He invites us into a world of wild things, inspiration and the love that Sendak has for the world. "Live your life, live your life, live your life."... posted on Mar 16, 6478 reads

Elders & Llamas: A Love Story
It's not everyday that a llama walks into your room. And that's the magic in it! The llamas is question are therapy animals, who visit nursing homes, mental institutions, and rehabilitation facilities to surprise, delight, nuzzle, and be-nuzzled-by the residents. These lovely, funny-faced creatures have received many hours of special training to provide a comforting, affection-inducing presence. A... posted on May 20, 6842 reads

What Is It To Be Intellectually Humble?
According to Aristotle, "All people by nature desire to know." The wish to know and understand things can foster great ambition. But this article is about intellectual humility, when we care so much about knowing, understanding, and getting to the truth that we become oblivious of what we are "worth." The apostle Paul says, "Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up." Can love of knowledge bring us h... posted on Jul 10, 34950 reads